Newsletter

Florian Wellbrock at the swimming world championships: gold over five kilometers – sport

50 000 dollars. Florian Wellbrock should soon receive this sum from the World Swimming Federation for the four medals he has won so far at the World Championships in Budapest. Doesn’t sound like that much money. The two world records set by Italy’s Thomas Ceccon and Hungary’s Kristof Milak last week in cymbal competitions also net them $50,000 each – in addition to the $20,000 the world title will bring them. But still: Such a five-digit amount is not a bad weekly wage in this core Olympic sport, in which only a few protagonists earn big.

Last Monday: Silver in the 800-meter freestyle. Saturday: Bronze in the 1500 meter freestyle. Sunday: Gold with the open water mixed relay in Lupasee. On Monday now: gold in the open water individual over the five-kilometer distance. For Wellbrock, the Schlaks from Magdeburg, golden days have dawned at this artificially created lido, the 24-year-old looks relaxed, as if freed from a burden that had weighed on him in the pool. He wasn’t satisfied with silver and bronze there, his trainer Bernd Berkhahn wasn’t satisfied with how the swimmer implemented the tactical guidelines.

After that, Wellbrock apparently spoke a lot with the psychologist who was traveling with him, also on Monday morning, as Berkhahn later reported: “If you put him in the right mood, he’s clear in his head and delivers.” In any case, at 9 o’clock he jumped into the warm lake in good spirits. Wellbrock loves the warm water, in the SZ interview he said before the start of the World Cup: “As far as the water temperature is concerned, I’m really a wimp. From 25 degrees I start to feel good.” The water in Hungary was 26.7 degrees.

And Wellbrock delivered.

Wellbrock’s coach Berkhahn is proud this time: “The three outclassed the field.”

He managed a splendid race 15 kilometers north of the center of Budapest. He held off his rivals Gregorio Paltrinieri and Mykhailo Romanchuk, who wanted to pull away from the start – Wellbrock had caught them by the end of the first straight. From then on he swam his pace, first behind Romantschuk, who did a lot of leadership work, later the German drove the hasty trio himself. He crossed the finish line in 52:48 minutes, almost four seconds ahead of Paltrinieri, who had overtaken him over 1500 meters in the pool, and around 25 seconds ahead of Romanchuk. “We didn’t want to let it end in a final sprint with 15 people,” said Wellbrock, his trainer Berkhahn was now proud: “The three outclassed the field.”

That was one of the stories of this race: the trio hugged each other after the award ceremony, the competitors appreciate each other very much – and tease them more often. Five weeks ago, Paltrinieri responded to an Instagram post by Romanchuk (“Just finished my first open water competition, a new experience for me, but I’m happy with the result”): “You’d better get back in the pool. ” Romantschuk has grown fond of Wellbrock anyway since he steered the Ukrainian to his training group in Magdeburg when the war began – and now apparently also into open water.

How two rivals became friends because they train together every day because of a war is one of the great stories of these World Cups. Romantschuk’s family was also at the Lupasee on Monday, the sister, the mother, the mother-in-law, friends of the family. And Wellbrock said the beautiful sentence after the award: “I have the three people on the podium that I wanted there.”

The biggest issue now is of course Wellbrock. He had only swum the five kilometers at the world championships before, on his debut in Kazan in 2015. He was fifth then, as a 17-year-old. Now he is the first German world champion over this distance since 2011, when Thomas Lurz won in Shanghai. Should Wellbrock reach the podium in the ten-kilometer competition on Wednesday, he would have become the second German swimmer to win five medals at the same world championships. He would then have drawn level with Michael Groß, the albatross, in these statistics.

First around the buoy: Florian Wellbrock swimming five kilometers.

(Photo: AP)

At the end of April Wellbrock couldn’t really count on things going so well for him in Budapest. He had to have his wisdom teeth removed, as he reported on Monday, “no sport for seven to almost ten days, then moderate entry, it’s throbbing, it’s an open wound”. In the altitude training camp, the complaints slowly disappeared, Wellbrock got in shape just in time. After the five-kilometer race, he said proudly: “Germany hasn’t had such a successful World Cup for a long time.” (The Würzburg native Leonie Antonia Beck just missed out on bronze in the women’s five-kilometer race.)

The competition is already wondering how they are going to beat Wellbrock in the ten-kilometer race on Wednesday. “In my opinion, he’s difficult to stop at the moment,” agrees Berkhahn. And now it’s getting hotter and hotter in Budapest, around 40 degrees in the next few days, so the water temperature is also rising. “We’re slowly reaching the conditions in Tokyo,” said coach Berkhahn. At that time Wellbrock plowed in the 29.2 degree warm water to win the Olympics.

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Trending